Abe came into the wheelhouse. ‘There’s a blow building to the east. We should try to make port before nightfall. Don’t want to be at sea at night, ’cause when we were in Samoa I heard a rumour that pirates from the north are moving south. They often attack at dusk or sunrise.’
Danny schooled his mouth not to smile. Abe was a perennial worrier, ever since, many years ago, he was boarded by pirates and had his cargo stolen. He also worried about losing cargo overboard or the lugger foundering in a storm. ‘We should be fine. We’re running with the wind and she’s doing better than six knots an hour.’
‘Everything’s under control then?’
‘Aye, Captain.’
‘You’ll keep the shotgun close, just in case?’
Danny gave an affirmative nod. He always did.
Abe yawned. ‘Then I’ll take a nap in my bunk, son. Wake me when we get close to port, will you?’
‘Aye.’
Alone again, Danny let his thoughts wander to the possibility of buying the lugger when Abe retired. He’d been saving every penny he could, becoming a real-life Scrooge, but he didn’t have anywhere near enough. Nor did he have sufficient credibility with a bank to secure a loan. What he needed was…a lot of money, fast. He frowned as he checked the compass and made an adjustment to the wheel, steering the lugger back on course.
Amy was pleased with herself. The meeting had just concluded, with those attending unconditionally accepting the constitution of the Country Women’s League of the Flinders Ranges, and they’d already planned their first money-raising project: a district-wide drive to build a football field that would also be an area for country shows, on land donated to the town upon the recent death of Byron Ellis’s mother. It would be known as the Mabel Ellis Sports Field. The goal was a considerable undertaking and Amy knew she would need to liaise with both churches and various government bodies for financial and public support. Nothing was going to happen quickly, she had been at pains to make the membership understand that, but it was a start, and that was the important thing.
There had been a few dissenters. Bill and Margaret Walpole had tried to disrupt the meeting, asking a good many irrelevant and foolish questions, and when that hadn’t met with success, Bill stood up and began to berate those present, angry that he wasn’t having the impact he wanted.
‘You should be doing what you do best, what women have always done. Stay at home, cook, care for your husbands and raise your families. Everything else should be left to the men, because we’re better equipped and qualified to do it.’
‘What a load of rubbish!’ Dot Quinton responded in her forthright way. ‘Very few of the men in the district, other than Reverend Whitton and the Catholic priest, have done anything beneficial for the community as a whole. You’re all too busy raising sheep and cattle and wheat.’
‘Now, Dot, I think you’re being a bit unfair,’ Margaret Walpole objected in her quiet voice. ‘Have you forgotten that Bill and some of the other pastoralists raised money to build the memorial to the local men who’d fallen in the Great War.’
‘Which was commendable,’ Amy put in graciously. ‘But we women realise how busy the men are, and as you can see by the number of women here,’ she had counted fifteen, which was a reasonable representation for the town and district, ‘there are many who want to do more.’
Winnie Cohen, normally reserved in company, spoke her mind. ‘If we wait for the men of the Flinders to find the time to build a sports field or make additions to the hospital or provide better toilet facilities for the school, we’ll all be old and grey before anything happens.’
The women chorused loudly, ‘Hear, hear.’
‘Well, don’t expect any financial support from the Walpoles.’ Seeing that he hadn’t made a dent in their intentions, Bill urged his wife to rise. He rammed his hat on his head, giving Amy and those who made eye contact with him a disdainful glare, then took his wife’s elbow and stormed out of the hall.
‘Now, as I was saying…’ Amy said smoothly, dismissing Bill’s lack of community spirit with a smile, ‘any ideas you have on future projects would be most welcome. There’s a suggestion box on the table if you’d care to scribble something down.’
Winnie Cohen came up to Amy after the meeting adjourned. ‘Clem got a phone call at the pub from the editor of the Hawker newspaper. He said he’d like to put a report in the Chronicle on what we’re doing.’ Her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. ‘Isn’t it wonderful that a big town like Hawker is interested?’
Dot Quinton was on Amy’s other side and was quick to answer. ‘It is, and not before time either. The editor could have been supportive from the beginning, but like a lot of country men, he didn’t believe we had the wherewithal to get things going.’
‘Perhaps so, but it’s important not to get people offside, Dot,’ Amy said diplomatically. ‘We need all the support we can get, and men like the Chronicle editor, and local as well as state politicians taking us seriously, will, I hope, be more of a help than a hindrance. Winnie, could you write up the report?’ she requested. ‘It would be good to do it from a member’s perspective rather than the president’s.’
‘I don’t know. Are you sure?’ Winnie was hesitant.
Dot butted in again. ‘Why don’t we write it together, Winnie?’
Amy smiled at Dot. ‘A wonderful idea.’ She was still quietly amazed by how much Dot Quinton had changed since her son’s brush with death. It was as if she had become a different person: interested, caring, though still dogmatic when she wanted to push a point. In fact, more good than bad had come from that dreadful flu epidemic last winter and from saving Christine Cummings and her twins’ lives. People looked at Amy differently, treated her differently. With a definite sense of relief, she realised that she was no longer the town’s pariah.
She expected to find Randall waiting outside the meeting hall and wasn’t disappointed. He usually contrived to be in town when her meetings took place.
‘Randall, what a surprise,’ she said, tongue-in-cheek, smiling up at him because she couldn’t help herself. Over the last few months she had seen very little of him. Both had seemed content to keep their own counsel, but when they were together all the feelings she had sublimated and tried to squash since Danny’s departure came back as strong as ever.
A dark eyebrow lifted at the sarcasm but he didn’t respond to it. ‘Joe got another letter from Danny. I bought it from him. I thought you might like to read it over a cup of tea at the tea shoppe.’
Amy was well aware that the letter and cup of tea were a subterfuge. He wanted to spend a little time with her. ‘Thank you. The meeting went well and I’m in the mood for a celebratory cup of tea.’
Sitting in the tea shoppe with its lace-edged tablecloths and china crockery, Amy experienced a burst of nostalgia because it reminded her of tea shoppes that, as a child, she had frequented with her mother in Adelaide. That seemed so long ago. Here she was in a far-flung country town, almost twenty-eight years old, the matron of a small hospital and now the president of the first country women’s league in the state. Her mother, who’d championed women’s rights last century, would be proud of what she’d achieved. She gave a barely audible sigh and tucked the melancholy back into her subconscious.
‘The meeting went according to plan?’
Amy nodded. ‘It did. Particularly after Bill and Margaret Walpole left. I don’t like to speak ill of people, but he is a mean-spirited man.’
‘Bill wants to be boss cocky, to feel that he’s running the show. If the formation of a women’s league had been his idea or Margaret’s, instead of yours, he’d support it to the hilt.’
‘I’m hoping that as we grow and gain respect it won’t be exclusively women, that some men in the Flinders will want to be involved.’
Randall’s head tilted to one side as he gave her words consideration. ‘It will be like that, in time. Still, it’s a fact that generally country men are notorious for not liking change.’ He paused while the you
ng waitress brought their pot of tea, a dainty jug of milk and a small silver tray containing several iced cupcakes. Randall let Amy pour the tea then reached for the sugar bowl. Lifting the lid he put two generous teaspoons of sugar into his cup.
‘You said you had another letter from Danny,’ Amy prompted as she sipped her tea.
‘The letter came to Joe. He sold it to me.’
‘That wouldn’t impress Danny.’ Amy’s tone was critical of such crass behaviour. ‘If Danny wanted you or me to know where he was and what he was doing, surely he would have written directly to one of us?’
‘Perhaps, but maybe he’s not comfortable with doing that.’ Randall took the creased letter out of his trouser pocket and handed it to Amy to read. As she gave the letter her full attention he watched her expression change from being pensive, to interested, and finally to delight.
She folded the letter up and put it back in its envelope. ‘I’m pleased. Danny appears to be thriving.’
Randall didn’t doubt the sincerity in her tone. That Danny was happy with his lot and making a go of things at sea had eased his conscience considerably—in fact, enough to press for the answer to a question he had been longing to ask the woman he loved for more than a year.
He reached across and took hold of Amy’s right hand, covering it with his own. ‘Amy…’ Usually articulate, he suddenly found it hard to say what was in his heart and mind. ‘We…we’ve done the right thing; we’ve waited. I can’t see a reason for us to wait any longer.’ He inhaled a calming breath. ‘Amy Carmichael, will you marry me?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Amy’s blue eyes widened with amazement, while internally she felt something else, and for no logical reason: alarm. Her heartbeat raced and the pulse at her throat beat madly as Randall’s dark eyes locked with hers. She wasn’t ready for his question; neither was she ready to give an answer, even though she had mentally gone over the possibility of marrying Randall many times since they’d declared their feelings for each other by the creek. However…so much had happened since then—Danny’s departure, the Walpoles’ enmity, the way some townspeople had turned against her. Still, surely it wasn’t a hard decision to make?
‘I—I don’t know. I didn’t think, I mean—you asking, it’s, uummm, a surprise.’ The more she spoke, the more confused she became. She needed time to think, to assess what marrying Randall would mean to her and to the community. Would they judge them harshly, as they had over Beth and Danny? She became acutely aware of the pressure of his hand on hers.
‘It’s come as a shock,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. It’s just that we’ve been patient and waited for attitudes to change—and they have. I don’t want to wait any longer to make you my wife. If,’ he smiled boyishly, ‘you’ll have me as your husband.’
Amy listened to the throbbing of her heart and longed to say yes, yes, yes. But something—she wasn’t sure what—stopped her. She had made a mistake in agreeing to marry Danny, and she didn’t want to make a second error of judgment. Would it be, though? She was sure that she loved Randall with all her heart; she ached to make the dream of being with him a reality, so what more was there to think about? Why was she hesitating? She didn’t know, but the fact that she was worried her immensely, because she was well and truly old enough to know her own mind.
Acute disappointment etched Randall’s features as he withdrew his hand from hers. ‘I understand.’ His tone changed, became withdrawn. ‘You need time to think.’ He finished his tea, and the cup clattered noisily as he banged it back on the saucer. ‘I must go; work to do at Drovers.’ The chair scraped on the polished timber floor as he got to his feet.
‘Randall, please understand…’ She could sense his frustration with her indecisiveness, but as her inner confusion grew she was at a loss as to how to alleviate it. Whatever she said could be misunderstood. Better, she thought suddenly, to just allow some thinking time to get everything into perspective.
Without saying goodbye, Randall turned on his heel, paid the bill and walked out of the tea shoppe. Amy’s gaze followed his departure in astonishment and with no small degree of sadness. Oohhh! You silly woman. What had she done? She’d ruined everything! Would he take her inability to commit as a rejection of his proposal?
She desperately needed to talk to someone, to air her thoughts, her concerns. But who? Not her father; he was too busy, and besides, being a man, she couldn’t expect him to understand a woman’s emotions, her logic. Meg? She had been like a second mother to Amy for many years, but she was frighteningly forthright, and while she adored Amy’s father, Meg had little respect for men, having been disappointed by one or another several times in her youth.
What about Winnie Cohen? They had become fast friends over the last eighteen months, drawn together by their desire to get the women’s league up and running, and because Winnie’s daughter Rebekkah was training to be a nurse at the hospital. Winnie was a mature woman, in her early forties, and while she was practical, she was also understanding and compassionate.
Making up her mind, on leaving the tea shoppe Amy turned right and began walking towards the Royal Hotel, where Winnie worked.
An hour later, after a frank and enlightening discussion with Winnie, Amy felt better. It was mid-afternoon when she returned to Primrose Cottage, changed into her riding clothes and went and saddled the Duchess, who was still agisted in a paddock at the rear of Fred Smith’s blacksmith shop. A ride in the country was always beneficial, Amy told herself as she mounted her horse and left the paddock. The countryside, the rugged hills and summer colours of the Flinders, their stark and compelling rocky texture, coupled with a faint breeze to offset the heat, never failed to lift her spirits.
The Duchess hadn’t been ridden for several weeks and was, understandably, frisky. Amy let the thoroughbred have her head as she trotted then cantered along the grass verge beside the road, out of town and in a south-easterly direction. It was early summer and there was still a good trickle of water in Boolcunda Creek, a waterway that twisted and turned and crossed itself more than once as it traversed the countryside. The horse stepped easily through the shallow water to the other side and up the rise. Amy flicked the reins and urged it to a gallop, and with a joyous whinny the Duchess obliged.
As horse and rider galloped as one, Amy reviewed the conversation she had had with Winnie. Her friend had suggested she focus on what was important to her, and be guided by her heart and the common sense she had in abundance. What did she want out of life? To be happy, to be fulfilled, to serve and, if she could, to make a difference. So how was she to accomplish this? Marrying Randall would make her happy and contented and Amy believed he would encourage rather than stifle her desire to do community work. If she chose not to marry him and to concentrate on her career in nursing, together with that and the women’s league she might gain a sense of fulfilment, but there wouldn’t be the same joy in it, of that she was sure.
As she rode, her conscience began to chastise her. Why are you shillyshallying? You love him, you want him, go tell him that if his offer still stands you want to marry him.
She pulled on the reins and the Duchess stopped. Amy blinked as she looked at the land around her. Without consciously planning it, her ride had taken her to another part of the creek, onto Drovers land, to the exact place where she and Randall had declared their feelings for each other. Was being here a sign that she was making the right decision? She smiled to herself. Of course it was. She turned the Duchess in the direction of the Drovers homestead and set off at a slow gallop.
Mike Milburn, who smiled readily at Amy because he liked and admired her, was herding a mob of sheep into the home paddock as Amy rode through the homestead’s entrance. ‘Hello, Mike. Is Randall about?’
‘He’s in the big shed hefting bales of hay. I’m sure he’d enjoy the interruption,’ Mike answered her question with a grin.
After tethering her horse, Amy made her way to the shed where much of the property’
s machinery and hay for winter feed was kept. On seeing Randall, she stood for a moment at the shed’s entrance and watched him work. The afternoon heat had made him strip down to boots, trousers and singlet. His tanned skin was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, his black hair damp from his labours. Her artist’s eyes studied him objectively, not only because she loved him, but also because he was a fine physical specimen: broad of shoulder, well muscled, and without an ounce of excess fat on him.
Amy’s stomach muscles tightened into a ball as she visually feasted on Randall, and a thrill ran down her spine at the thought of them making love. Which caused a burst of heat to rush through her body and tint her cheeks a rosy pink. She was very innocent with regard to the intimacies married people engaged in, other than having read clinical texts in some of her father’s medical books. Danny, her exfiancé, had treated her with the utmost respect, insisting they remain chaste till their wedding night. Later she’d realised that remaining so had suited her because she hadn’t had the same degree of feeling for him that she had for Randall. Now there was some trepidation on her part, but she was eager for his touch, for his kisses, for him to make her wholly his.
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